A four season TV show, focusing on the inexplicable births of super powered children, and the family they make along the way.
We got some good memes too
I really enjoyed this show. It has a lot of rough edges, but I really like how they often manage to do quite a lot with what feels like a tight budget (whether it really was tight, I haven’t checked). There’s very rarely anything spectacular in the VFX space, the show’s impact comes down to a great script. The special effects are few and far between, and if I’m honest, they usually don’t look that great (with a few exceptions). But I still loved the show and it’s because none of that matters.
❤️
I could watch nothing but an entire series of five being the most murdery time lord ever.
I really enjoyed seasons one and two. I think the strongest character was five. I really enjoyed the exploration of the mystery boxes.
Reginald
The super space alien headmaster, parent, aspect I think is the biggest anchor of the show. I would consider this the a plot of the entire series The more we learn about the alien the more everything comes together
The show is exemplified by poor communication skills, a lot of the drama is simply because people cannot concisely communicate their needs and what they’ve observed. And that is frustrating
Regarding the poor communication thing: I agree that it’s frustrating, but once I realized that them being a dysfunctional family is the entire premise of the show, I was a lot more accepting of it while watching. They all have intense bottled up feelings about each other, it’s actually realistic that they’re complete failures at communication.
I agree. Especially with Reginald. Given his unique circumstances and past. Him being an absolutely obtuse and unapologetic poor communicator can make a lot of sense.
Even season 2 to season 3, Reginald takes his feedback and goes off in a weird tangent instead of becoming a better communicator. And for his background that can make a lot of sense.
I just wish we’d fleshed out Reginald’s motivations more even if they were crazy
Five is the best.
One, Beast Boy, seems like a high school jock that became an actor to get laid. I usually skip through the One/Allison ship drudgery.
Allison started off ok, but season 3/4 seems unhinged.
The Allison arc is really weird. But I suppose somebody who has basically mind control powers would become something of a narcissist. I just don’t think they justified that in the story they told
Season 2 Allison feels like a totally different person than season 3 Allison. Totally different motivations and urgency.
Not to mention the insanity of season 3 Allison making a deal with Reginald, and then at the last second the train Reginald, and causing Luther’s wife to disappear from the timeline… That’s really frustrating
The betrayal never made sense to me.
Don’t push that button, it’ll kill my family.
Murders Dad, hits button anyway?
Yeah. That was intense. And insane. I don’t understand it at all.
Not to mention Allison had made a deal with Dad, so she knew what was going to happen anyway…
Been a long while…
Anyway, Allison was meant as someone growing up used to having everyone’s attention on them and every whim catered to. Her family was supposed to keep her grounded, but then she had a breakdown and fell back to that selfish mindset as a self-defense mechanism.
While the stories of the others might be about growth, hers is one of regression. That’s why I think it feels disjointed, because she is in that kind of state.
I hadn’t considered the regression perspective. I guess I always saw the umbrella academy as her core family.
But you’re right, she lost two different sets of family over two different seasons. That’s got to mess with you
I think the season 1, and season 2 beast boy Luther Arc was fairly good the person developed, and they handled adversity fairly well.
The season 3 marriage kind of felt a little out of nowhere, and then season 4 my wife disappears oh well just was super wacky. Not to mention the whole stripper career as the fallback for somebody with such a unique background
Klaus has to be my favorite character arc, I started off not liking them, but as they developed, as they came to terms with their powers and their role. They became an actualized human being.
Well five will always be my favorite, Klaus has the most satisfying arc
I watched Umbrella Academy before Misfits, and was blown away by how great Klaus’ actor is in that earlier show as well. Guy’s just perfect for that kind of role; real “OG Jack Sparrow” energy, in a very good way.
Still have yet to get started on the last season, but looking forward to it!
I just watched seasons 1 through 4, so I’m happy to talk about anything from the show. It’s all fresh in my mind.
Like why did fives blinking teleportation power change in season 4? I don’t know, it seems like something we should really dig into
Most of them had their powers changed.
power changes
Allison got telekinesis, Lila got laser eyes that are just by coincidence exactly the same as Homelander’s from The Boys, and Five as you said started teleporting to the multiverse subway. I also think, though I didn’t double check, that Ben used to have tentacles come out of his belly/chest and it changed to come out of his back.
There may have been other changes that I’ve missed, but I think Diego for example keeps the same power, maybe just a bit powered up.
Do you think the powers changed because they were getting older, and more experience with the powers?
Or did they get their power changes because of
hibachi
The spiked sake shot at the hibachi restaurant? Did the second dosage give The randomized powers? Or were the powers always within them
I understand ben getting weird extra powers because he took a bunch of extra shots. That makes sense
Diego feels like the least powerful member of the crew, the most angsty
My interpretation
Their powers changed because the marigold wasn’t in them for all those years. Their ‘potential powers’ within them drifted, and they were only locked in to their new powers when they drank the marigold. In other words, their powers can only change while they don’t have them - when they have powers, they stay the same (but can be improved a lot through training as we’ve seen).
I don’t think being mixed with another drink has anything to do with it
But it’s all open to interpretation anyway :)
On thing that still bothers me, five is the founder of the time police, which makes briefcases so anyone can time travel.
Are the time police always operating on the same timeline or are they multiverse jumping too?
season 4
Why did Reginald, after having access to the amazing time and space recreation machine, not remake his homeworld? Why did he make an empire on earth? If you had that machine wouldn’t you turn back everything to the way it should be? Including preventing the destruction of your own planet. This just doesn’t make sense to me
Sorry, what time and space recreation machine? I binged season 4 in one day, did I somehow miss something this huge?
The closest thing I can think of is the memory fiddling machine.
The big MacGuffin machine from the end of season 3. The Oblivion hotel. That could fix the time and space problems they were having.
So when we came in to season 4 I was surprised that Reginald didn’t fix his core motivational problems. He brought his wife back, which is great, but he could have done a lot more
Oh, right. That time and space recreation machine.
I didn’t think much of it because basically it didn’t make any sense at all. They didn’t explain what it was, what it was capable of (or wasn’t capable of), what Reginald actually wanted it to do, whether he managed to complete all the preparations/configuration before Allison killed him and pushed the button, what the ramifications of an incomplete configuration might be… Basically, anything could happen and there’s no point pondering it (in my mind). It was a really hasty season ending, which is how every season seems to end.
You’re completely correct. But they spent a ton of time building it up.
My theory is it is either what Reginald said, a magical time and space machine. Or, it’s Reginald’s original ship that he escaped on. And he has to get back in there and manipulate things.
Since the MacGuffin machine runs on Marigold particles, and marigold particles were created by Reginald’s wife, I think it makes the most sense that the MacGuffin machine is Reginald ship . Not to mention the hotel he created was a mirror image of the ship interior, and he created that hotel before he could see the ship. So that tells me he knew what he was looking for.
Now why does Reginald ship have a security system that Reginald can’t control? Not sure, we could come up with a bunch of reasons. But it’s interesting